New to this site and trying to gather information for my mother,

[mendenhall2112]

New to this site and trying to gather information for my mother,

My father, a Vietnam vet and 100% VA rated passed away in Feb of 2011 from a heart attack. I filed a DIC claim on my mother behalf in March of 2011. I found out this week, Aug 2011, the DIC claim is in, Nehmer limbo. While going through one of my father’s old VA claims I saw he had been denied a claim for a, “heart condition” in 1986. No other description was given. If the heart condition claim denied in 1986 falls under the Nehmer guidelines does that mean it is retroactive back to 1986 and that my mother is entitled to the retroactive payment? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[mendenhall2112]

If he was denied for a heart condition then his claim would have come under Nehmer. This could mean big retro.

John999,

Thank you for the info!

[Berta]

I dont foresee any retro as an accrued award here and checked this with another vets/widows advocate last night- However-

I am anxious to follow this post to see what others offer as to any retro- accrued.I sure don't know it all.

I might be missing a critical regulation.

When she emails NVLSP she can ask about the accrued potential and I had this thought too-

Since there was no claim pending at death (the criteria for an accrued award)-it might be possible she could substitute herself as the claimant and file a CUE on the past denied and unappealed heart disease decision.

This is something else she could run by NVLSP to see if this type of CUE is possible here.

I hesitate to ask my NVLSP contact lawyer because I don't know all the nuances of this situation and a good NVLSP lawyer will respond to her email anyhow and base their answers on the info they will ask her for.

They will need date of the past denied IHD claim , the date of the filing of the claim, and whether this denial was from the BVA or the VARO.

There are facets of Nehmer that have not been tested by widows.I cant even find a BVA case similiar to mine.

The advocate I spoke to succeeded in her DIC claim against overwhelming odds (BWN vet widow)and I too never had support for any of my successful VA claims.

I think us widows can get pretty tenacious. We get angry when we loss a spouse due to SC.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Berta

[mendenhall2112]

Emailed the NVLSP, just waiting on a reply.

[mendenhall2112]

Good news to update,

It took a year, but the DIC claim was approved by the VA and my mother received the DIC back pay and is now getting a monthly check for DIC. The VA letter granting DIC also said my father was denied for the nehmer claim for a heart condition. However, I found a VA letter dating back to 1986 stating the VA denied my father's claim for Organic Heart Disease as not being "service connected". So wouldn't this fall under the presumptive illnesses? The letter didn’t say you don’t have Organic heart Disease; it gave him a classification for OHD and just stated it was not service connected. Anyone else have a similar circumstance?

M Mendenhall

Edited May 8, 2012 by mendenhall2112

[Berta]

That is WONDERFUL news on the DIC-

"So wouldn't this fall under the presumptive illnesses?"

Possibly- if he was incountry Vietnam.

I suggest you read over the Nehmer Training guide in our AO forum----

It is 126 pages but you need to look for the page that explains the dates (Sept 1985 is the beginning of Nehmer so maybe his claim did not fall under Nehmer-in that respect-cant tell here)

and read over the VA's definition of IHD _Ischemic heart disease- as 'organic' heart disease is a term I am unfamiliar with-because ALL heart disease is organic-

that term doesn't make sense-

and if he had ischemic heart disease then Nehmer should kick in- but not enough info here to say for sure.

Also you might want to search in the AO forum under Footnote one, Nehmer.

Many of us here were Footnote One Nehmer claimants.